Bring Me Their Hearts(22)
“Water for a witch,” he mutters, as if it’s a prayer that will protect him. “Fire for their thralls.”
Y’shennria’s face is grim, granite. No one moves. No one even tries. I grip the hilt of my sword tight. If I do nothing, he dies—but how can I do something? I’d put myself at risk, get thrown into the dungeons. Nightsinger would shatter my heart, and that would be it. I would never be free.
And it’s then I realize with crystal clarity just how selfish, just how monstrous, I really am.
I have to let him die.
I can’t watch. I squeeze my eyes shut as the boy takes his last forced step up the ladder. There’s silence, the slamming of something metal. Time moves so long and slow, until cheering bursts from the crowd like a grim punctuation mark on the end of the boy’s life.
I run back into the bar and vomit into the nearest vase.
4
A Meeting
of Thieves
“This city is rotten,” I hiss, wiping at my mouth with a handkerchief Y’shennria’s offered me.
“This city is afraid,” she corrects. “And fear turns the wisest and kindest men stupid and cruel.”
“Then Archduke Gavik is the cruelest and stupidest of all,” I snarl. Her eyes dart around, as if fearful someone heard that, but she doesn’t disagree. “Why does he do these purges? How often?”
“It started as once every few weeks, then became once every few days. He claims it’s for the city’s sake,” Y’shennria says. “Though I’ve known him since we were young—he’s always held a burning hate for witches and their kind. His father was killed in the Sunless War, and his mother wasted away slowly before she took her own life.”
“That’s no excuse to drown a living being like that!”
“I never said it was an excuse,” she says softly. “Simply that our pain breeds hate, and our hate makes us all do terrible things.”
“There aren’t any witches left in Vetris,” I murmur. “They told me that themselves. So who was that boy?”
“A human, no doubt. A drifter, or a starseed addict, or a refugee from Pendron and its civil war. The archduke isn’t picky about his scapegoats.”
“Can’t the king stop him?”
“The king knows about it, undoubtedly sanctions it.”
“Why?”
“To keep Cavanos in line, of course. He’s not his father—he doesn’t have the love of his people. But he has their fear.”
A hard pit of hate begins to burn in me. It’s an old hate, a familiar hate—the same hate that drove me to tear the bandits apart. Hate is dangerous. This city’s reminded me of that much.
Mercifully, Y’shennria ushers me out of the bar and back into the carriage. She lectures me on how to wear the colors of spring correctly—pinks and greens and oranges, no reds or yellows, ribbons appreciated and chiffon a requirement, but I can barely parse it all. She knows that, presses hard on these lessons as if they’ll distract me from what I just saw. But I can’t banish the lingering sick in my throat, at both the city and at myself for how ready I was to sacrifice that boy for my freedom.
Y’shennria stops the carriage at a tailor shop, and numbly I go in. I can’t even muster excitement about the endless rows of gorgeous, ruffle-drenched dresses in the window. I let the bug-eyed old man measure my every body part. He croons about how lovely velvet would look on me or some such nonsense. Y’shennria urges me to thank him, but when I don’t, she pulls me aside.
“You must put what happened behind you, if you want your heart,” she mutters. “You are a lady, and a lady always hides her true feelings behind an impenetrable mask of politeness.”
“They killed someone,” I hiss. “In front of everyone.”
“And they will kill many more,” Y’shennria hisses back, “if you don’t take the first step and impress the prince and the court with these dresses.”
I swallow, and when she steps away, I smile at the tailor.
“I’m sorry, good sir. You’d be surprised how quickly traveling turns one into a grumpy wreck.”
The tailor grins, bobbing his wizened head and resuming his measurements. When it’s over, and Y’shennria and the tailor are talking of what fabrics to use for my extensive wardrobe, I bow out of the shop and breathe the mercury-tinged air of Vetris deeply. A shout rings out just then in the square, a welcome distraction.
“Thief! Lawguards, a thief just stole from my pockets!”
I whirl to see a noble in distress, fishing about lamely at his gilded vest. A dark figure speeds away from the noble, something golden clutched in his hand. Clanking armor resounds as the lawguards dash after the figure, swords drawn.
I might not be able to stop a purge, but I can definitely catch a thief.
I gather my skirts and dash madly after the thief before Fisher can stop me. He ducked into a side alley—how predictable. Except when I round the alley, he isn’t there. I hear lawguards shouting, their armor clanking in other directions. The thief won’t be near any noise if he’s smart. He looked tall and strapping, so climbing the fence to my right wouldn’t have been a problem. I pull myself up with some struggle, landing on the other side. It’s another alley. A dead end.